Word: carly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Like some other recent new models, the X cars will have front-wheel drive; with FWD, engine power is delivered to the front wheels to pull the car. European manufacturers have long been using FWD, but the U.S. industry began and grew up with rear-wheel drive, and Detroit's chiefs regarded changing to FWD as prohibitively expensive...
Despite the mileage standards, the manufacturers are determined to go on making full-size, six-passenger cars. As GM Chairman Thomas Aquinas Murphy told TIME Detroit Bureau Chief Barrett Seaman, "It's one thing to talk about reinventing the automobile to get one that will go 50 miles on a gallon. It is another thing to talk about fleet averages. That means you have got to have some cars that get a lot more than 50 miles a gallon if you are going to have the bigger alternative models people in the past have found they needed to pull...
...diesel has other shortcomings: it is costly (GM charges $287 extra for it), starts poorly in cold weather and some times causes a car to vibrate. Ford, the No. 2 automaker, regards the diesel as a back-up and hopes to ride into the future on a stratified-charge "proco" (programmed combustion) engine. In it, the fuel is essentially divided into two mix tures of gas and air, one of which is "rich" (high on the gas) and one "lean" (high on air). The two mixtures are burned in sequence in the combustion chamber, and this produces 20% more mileage...
...Chrysler will spend about $18 billion between 1979 and 1985 to reach the various pollution, mileage and safety goals set by the Government. Most of this inflationary cost, of course, will be borne by the buyer. According to GM's Estes, the price of a typical GM car by 1985 will be $945 more than it would have been without the regulations...
...which last year had foreign sales of $11 billion, vs. Ford's $13 billion, is speeding to catch up, and, with its fat pocketbook and drive, it might overtake Ford in the next decade. GM .has the other emerging world car in its popular Chevette, and its X cars are prime candidates for world status. Estes aims to increase GM's unit sales abroad by 8% a year through 1985, making major pushes not only in Europe but also in Mexico, South America, Korea, Japan and Africa...